Kernos

Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion

grecque antique
10 | 1997
Varia

Death and Afterlife in Minoan Religion

Bernard C. Dietrich

Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/643
DOI: 10.4000/kernos.643
ISSN: 2034-7871

Publisher
Centre international d'étude de la religion grecque antique

Printed version
Date of publication: 1 January 1997
Number of pages: 19-38
ISSN: 0776-3824

Electronic reference
Bernard C. Dietrich, « Death and Afterlife in Minoan Religion », Kernos [Online], 10 | 1997, Online since
12 April 2011, connection on 30 April 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/kernos/643 ; DOI :
10.4000/kernos.643

Kernos
 Kernos, 10 (1997), p. 19-38.

Death and Mterlife in Minoan Religion

Minoan religion centred on the fruitfulness of nature and its powers of

renewal. Death was a necessary stage of that process to ensure rebirth. Did the
Minoans or Mycenaeans, for that matter, look beyond that recurring cycle of life
from death ? Burial practices do not contribute any decisive information on this
point. The mode of disposaI of the physical remains had little bearing on
religious belief: cremation or burial served the same purpose and had no parti-
cular significance in what was thought to happen after death. Nor did either
method fundamentally affect the nature of funerary ceremonial 1 . In such a
pragmatic vision of death as a natural stage in the repeating cycle of renewal
there is little room for concepts of afterlife. The belief in a continued separate
existence in sorne otherwordly fourth dimension presupposes the notion of
survival in sorne form of individual identity after death. Minoan and Mycenaean
iconography is not helpful on that point, or at best ambiguous.
A terracotta model, that was found in the tholos complex at Kamilari,
consists of two pairs of figures sitting against the wall of a portico and receiving
offerings of food from two smaller male figures who stand before them 2 (Fig. 1).
The setting recalls the scene on one of the long sides of the Hagia Triada sarco-
phagus, where the statue-like main figure of the dead is being offered various
gifts 3 . Both representations are instances of a special service for, tendance of, or
more likely cult of the dead. The extended festival, that is depicted on the
sarcophagus, includes sacrifice in honour of the dead, gifts and libations. All of
those were cornmon on such occasions from the early funerary cuits about the
tombs in the Mesara 4. Underlying the 'celebration' of death with its elaborate
ritual, which also included communal meals, is the expectation of renewal.

E. VERMEULE, Aspects of Death ill Barly Greek Art alld PoetlY CSather Class.Lect. 46), Berkeley,
1979 CSather Class. Lectures, 46), p. 2; B. UHDE, Psyche. Bill Symbol?, in G. STEPHENSON Ced.) Lebell
und Tod in den Religionen. Symbolulld IVirklichkeit, Darmstadt, 1980, p. 112.
2 D. LEVI, La Tomba a 71)olos di Kami/an', in ASAA, 39/40 (962), p. 59. The roof crowned with
horns of consecration is now missing.
Recent discussions of the larnax with full bibliographies are by W. POTSCHER, Aspekte ulld
Probleme der Milloischell Religioll. Bill Versuch, Hildesheim-Zürich-New York, 1990, p. 171-191;
N. MARINATOS, Milloall Religioll. Ritual, Image, alld Symbol, Univ. South Carolina Press, 1993, p. 31-
36; 254 n. 113.
4 K. BRANIGAN, The Tombs of Mesara, London, 1970; E. VERMEULE, Greece ill the Brollze Age,
Chicago, 1966, p. 44.
 20 B.C. DIETRICH

Despite the often precious gifts, there is no convincing evidence that the
funerary cult implied heroization, or indeed deification, of the dead 5 . Hero cult
has plausibly been explained as a phenomenon of archaic times in the main, and
it tended to be reserved for Homer's warriors before Troy, or for the heroes that
were thought to have been buried in prehistoric Mycenaean tombs 6. The recur-
ring rites in honour of the dead focused on the tomb rather than on one indivi-
dual among the many dead that were buried there 7 . Exceptions to the mIe are
conceivable in the case of extraordinary royals or noblemen, including the
person who had been buried in the Hagia Triada sarcophagus. It is of consi-
derable interest that important aspects of funerary ritual changed little, if at aU,
between the Bronze Age and classical times. The actions of tending the dead,
laying out of the corpse (proth esis), signs of mourning and so on remained very
similar, apart from 'technical' differences of burial and cremations. Minoan
terracottas of mourning women in black dress, with hands clasped over their
heads, are virtually identical to their Mycenaean and Greek counterparts 9 . The
characteristic gesture of mourning is repeated on Mycenaean coffins, and it is
quite familiar in geometric and archaic Greek art lO .

Phourni: Minoan/Mycenaean funerary cult

A walled off area with seven Mycenaean shaft graves in the Minoan ceme-
tery of Phourni at Arkhanes in Crete looks like an implant in foreign soil. The
mode of burial, however, suggests an affinity between Minoan and Mycenaean
practice l l (Figs. 2 & 3). In many respects the setting resembles that of Grave
Circle A in Mycenae, although it antedated the Phourni enclosure by sorne two

B1tANIGAN, op. cif. (n.4), p. 1I7; V. LA ROSA, Ancient Crete. A Hundred Years of ltalian
Archaeology 1884-1984, Rome, 1985, p. 142. For a different view of the Kamilari dead see LEVI, art.
cit. (n. 2), p. 123; I. PINI, Beitriige zur minoischen Griiberkunde, Wiesbaden, 1968, p. 29.
6 V.R. d'A. DESBOROUGH, 71Je Greek Dark Ages, London, 1972, p. 283; ].N. COLDSTREAM.
Geometric Greece, London, 1977. p. 164; A. SNODGRASS. Archaic Greece. 71Je Age of Experiment,
London, 1980, p. 39; B.C. DIETRICH, Death, Pate and the Gods, repr. London, 1967, p. 31-35. The
ehthonic cult of heroes (daemons) in popular belief and superstition is diseussed on p. 35-58. There
are a number of different theories regarding hero cult vis à vis tomb and ancestor cult in the Early
Iron Age and arehaie Greece. They have most reeently been eritieally diseussed by Carla M.
ANTONACCIO, 71Je Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece, London, 1995.
7 Opinions differ on this point, see the previous note and Carla ANTONACCIO, Placing the Past,
in S.E. ALCOCK, R. OSBORNE (eds.), Placing the Gods, Oxford, 1994, p. 90-92.
8 VERMEULE, Aspects, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 63.
Cf 6th century B.C. Allie b-f bowl with mourning women, VERMEULE, Aspects, op. cif.(n. 1),
Fig. 19.
10 E.T. VERMEULE, Painted Mycel1aeml Larnakes, inJHS, 85 (1965), p. 142; Pl. xxv (a)(b); xxvii A,
B, C, D; Aspects, op. cit.(n. 1), p. 12-14, 6th cent. vase, Fig. 7.
11 On the cemetery of Phourni, which was in use for over 1000 years from EM II - LM IlIC, see
]. & E. SAKELLARAKIS, Crete. Archanes, Athens, 1991.
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 21

hundred years. But the peribolos wall at Mycenae, which was circular because
of the unevenly spaced graves, and the rectangular enclosure wall in the Cretan
cemetery were virtually contemporary12. The burials themselves present a
striking mixture of Minoan and Mycenaean customs: at Phourni the dead had
been placed inside Minoan-type larnakes, but the gifts were found directly in the
shaft, as in the case of the Mycenae graves which had no coffins. The sides of
the larnakes in Phourni had been painted, but those found in situ were mostly
broken and empty, except for one which contained a few bones. Indications are
that, like their Minoan neighbours, the Mycenaeans there practised secondary
burial: after the flesh had rotted away, they exhumed the bones and laid them to
rest in the Minoan-type coffin.
The characteristically Minoan terracotta larnax looks like a rounded bathtub
or, in another popular shape, like a rectangular chest, commonly with a lid in the
form of a pitched roof. Larnakes are known from Early Minoan bu t became
practically universal in post-palatial times in Crete. On the mainland they are
rare. A few quite late C13th/12th century B.C.) Mycenaean examples were
known; but they were believed to be exceptional and alien to Mycenaean
custom, until the relatively recent discovery of about a dozen such coffins in a
cemetery at Boeotian Tanagra 13. The Mycenaean coffins from Phourni now add
to the evidence.
Funerary ritual primarily concerned tendance of the physical remains and
did not obviously involve awareness of, let alone care for, a soul of the dead l4 .
Throughout Greek history the rites of laying out the corpse, carrying it to the
place of burial, mourning and so on, constituted important elements of separa-
tion of the dead from the living: a guiding away to another stage. In classical
times and later, scenes of parting are common on Attic grave monuments. The
dead is seen leaving his tomb on white-ground lekythoi, or oil flasks, which
were placed with the burial. Hermes guides the dead to the ferryman Charon
who takes him to Hades across the Acheron river. Scenes of this nature belong
primarily to the 5th century B.C., and so does the figure of Charon 15. Descrip-
tions of Hades and its topography first occur in Homer's Odyssey. The two
Nekyiai of Books 11 and 24 provided a model on which myth couId build up its
geography of the underworld 16.

12 Ibid., p. 71.
13 VERMEULE, ait. cit. (n. 10), p. 123-148. On the Tanagra larnakes see now also W. CAVANAGH -
C. MEE, MOllming before and after the Dark Age, in Klados. Essays in honollr of ].N.Coldstream,
London, 1995 (BICS Suppl. 63), , p. 45-61.
14 But see VERMEULE 's discussion in Aspects, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 7-11.
15 Cf Charun in Etruscan belief and art, DIETRICH, Fate, op. cif. (n. 6), p. 147.
16 VERMEULE, Aspects, op. cif. (n. 1), p. 4; 211 n. 6. Scenes of the underworld became popular on
South ltalian r.-f. vases, A.D. TRENDALL, South Italian Vase Painting, BM, 1966, p. 12-13.
22 B.e. DIETRICH

Fig. 1 : Terracotta model from Kamilari

(1. SAKELLARAKIS, Guide ta the Herakiionlv1useulIl, Athens, 1979, p. 54 [lower])

Fig. 2 : Mycenaean Shaft Graves, Phourni, Crete

(1. SAKLELLARAKIS, Crete. Archanes, Athens, 1991, fig. 41)
 Fig. 3 : Mycenaean Shaft Graves, Phourni, Crete (Reconstruction)
Q. SAKLELLARAKIS, Crele. Arcbal1es, Athens, 1991, fig. 42)

Fig. 4 : The Haghia Triada sarcophagus (MARINATOS-HIRMER, op. cit. [no 46], pl. xxx).
 24 B.C. DIETRICH

Funerary ritual also had a negative function of preventing the return of the
deceased's spirit 17 . There is no trace of a belief in an immortal human soul in this
practice which simply reveals the powerful atavistic fear that the potentially
harmful spirit might return to hurt the living 18. In popular superstition such evil
spirits were daemons, goblins and bogeys in the service of the goddess Hecate.
They could assume the shape of birds and strike anyone with madness or
disease 19 . Fears of this kind are pretty universal in most cultures, and they
doubtless played a part in Minoan and Mycenaean superstition as we1l 2o .
However, the Minoan common practice of multiple burial in one tomb, and
especially of reburial, does not suggest a lasting concern for the dead. The bones
of earlier burials were treated with scant respect: they were unceremoniously
pushed to one side in order to make room for new additions. Care obviously
ended when the corpse's familiar physical features had disappeared. So ideas of
any sort of palpable afterlife, are afortiori unlikely in Minoan religion 21 .
There is a period of transition between death and actual burial or crema-
tion. That period is taken up by the prescribed and basically unchanging rites 22 .
The passage grows considerably longer in the case of secondary burial which
may take between two to five years after death 23 . It has been suggested that the
traditional long period was needed for the soul of the dead person to break free
of its earthly bonds 24 . Indeed, similar notions are all but common coinage since
the Presocratic philosophers. The doctrine of the body as the tomb of the soul
(a&flcx allflcx), became familiar through Orphic teaching in the 6th century B.C.,
and it appealed to subsequent Greek philosophy25. The concept depends on a
belief in the survival of the individual's soul that was subject to reward or
punishment for past sins. Neither is likely, or at least provable, for the world of
Minoans and Mycenaeans. The practice of secondary burial did not by itself
indicate any eschatological ideas but allowed the living, who remained behind,
to take proper leave of their dead.

17 DETLEF _ I. LAUF, lm Zeicben des grossen Übergangs, in Leben und Tod in den Religionen,
Darmstadt, 1980, p. 88.
18 Cf. the banning of spirits of the dead (Keres) at the end of the Anthesteria festival,
M.P. NILSSON, GGRI3, p. 222, 597: DIETRICH, Fate, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 241.
19 Refs. in E. ROHDE, Psycbe (repr. of 8th ed., transI. by W.B.Hillis), London, 1950, App. VII, p. 593-
594: ANDRES in RE Suppl. III, s.v. Daimon: M.P. NILSSON, Griecbiscbe Feste von Religi6ser Bedeutung
mit Ausscbluss der Attiscben, Leipzig, 1906, p. 396; DIETRICH, Fate, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 18-20, 241-242.
20 See DIETRICH, Fate, op. cif. (n. 6), p. 144-145.
21 Above n. 5.
22 VERMEULE, Aspects, op. cit. (n. 1), p. 2.
23 MARINATOS, MinRel, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 26-27.
24 Ibid.
25 The idea was taken up by PLATO, Crat., 400c; cf. Gorgias, 493c with other etymologies of the
two words. See also ROHDE, Psycbe, op. cif. (n. 19), p. 335-361: W. BURKERT, Greek Religion. Arcbaic
and Classical (transI. by].Raffan), Oxford, 1985, p. 322.
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 25

The concept of Elysium and Minoan eschatology

Yet, sunt aliquid manes} letum non O1nnia finit. 'There are such things as
shades, death does not end ail', according to Propertius 26 . At the moment of
death something deserts the body which stays unmarked but begins its process
of disintegration. 'Soul' is a convenient term for this essential element of life.
Homer calls the insubstantial life-breath \jfUXn (psyche) which literally means just
that, 'breath' or 'air,27. In epic the dying hero first loses his 8U1l6ç, that is his
physical living strength, which leaves the body and vanishes. The \jfUXn follows
his 8ull6ç but does not dissolve: it flies away dream-like 28 . It flutters like a bat on
its way to Hades, after the physical remains have been duly buried 29 . 'Puxn in
Homer means 'life' therefore and not 'soul; even animaIs possessed a \jfUXn which
they lost at death 3ü .
A hero's psyche, however, entered Hades, 'Aïùnç in Homer, namely a
personification of 'the Invisible', which is an appropiate term for the abode of
the dead 31. The word eïùroÀov ('image, likeness') is synonymous with \jfUXn in
Homer: the eidolon gave visible form to the latter which in epic belief was
concept more than shape. The 'image' allowed the dead hero to appear physi-
caUy in his former shape but on a much smaller scale, waif-like and with wings
fluttering about gloomy Hades. The winged eidolon, which has been compared
with a soul-bird ('Seelenvogel'), became a popular theme for Greek vase painters
from the 8th/7th to the 5th century B.e. They pictoriaUy realised Homer's vision
of a man's psyche and its eidolon 32 . Aristotle was the first authority to use
psyche in the sense of 'butterfly' or 'moth>33.
The soul is still pictured as a butterfly in the folklore of modern Crete and
other peoples 34, bringing together an ancient symbol of the renewal of life and
philosophical / moral ideas of an immortal souI35. Homer's shades (psychaO

26 PROP., IV, 7, 1.
27 NILSSON, GGR 13 , p. 192-199, especially p. 194. On the Homeric concept of life, soul and
afterlife see also ROHDE, Psyche, op. cil. (n. 19), p. 3-43: E. BICKEL, Homerischer Seelenglaube (1925);
]. B6HME, Die Seele und das 1ch im Homerischen Epos (1929): B. SNELL, Die El1tdeckung des Geistes4
(1975): B. UHDE, art. cit. (n. 1), p. 103-117: A. DIHLE in Festschrift Stuiber, jjAC, 9 (1982), p. 9-20:
BURIŒRT, GrRel, op. cit. (n. 25), p. 194-199.
28 Gd., Xl, 222.
29 Gd., XXIV, 5-7; cf EUR., Hecuba, 705.
30 Gd., XlV, 426.
31 On this likely etymology see NILSSON, GGR 13, p. 455.
32 Homer borrowed his familiar notion from an earlier source, VERMEULE, m1. cil. (n. 10),
p. 146-147: see below n. 40. On the popular idea of a soul-bird, see G. WEICKER, Der Seelellvogel
(902) who collected the relevant instances: NILSSON, GGR 13 , p. 197-199.
33 Hist. ail., 551a 14.
34 A. EVANS, The Palace ofMillos at Knossos, London, 1921-1935 (cited PM below) III, p. 151.
35 B.e. DIETRICH, The Grigills of Greek Religion, Berlin, 1974, p. 121-122.
 26 B.C. DIETRICH

were, and always remained, insubstantial. They lacked strength, except tempo-
rarily after drinking the blood of freshly slaughtered victims, as in the Nekyia of
Odyssey 11, and they had no hope of ever being reborn. The psychai languished
miserably in Hades for al! time, so that even Achilles' shade was moved to
complain to Odysseus, that he would rather be a serf in the world above than
king of al! the shades below 36 . Homer perceived Hades' realm as existing in
paral!el with the world of the living; the psychai continued in Hades as replicas
of their old selves in occupation and social position but without punishment or
reward for their former deeds. The underworld in fact was modelled on the
world of the Olympians. In Homer Phoenix describes Hades as the 'chthonic
Zeus'37. Hades ruled his lower realm but also lived in a palace just like the
Olympians 38 .
The epic mythological and geographical details of Hades contain contra-
dictions which arose as a result of foreign influence impinging on earlier tradi-
tion. Hades is imagined as below the ground in a subterranean underworld, or at
the edge of the world and beyond Oceanus. In a passage from the Second
NelGyia Hermes leads the psychai of the dead suitors past the White Rock and
the Gates of the Sun, the Land of Dreams and on to the Field of Asphodel,
'where dwell the psychai, shapes Ceidola) of men outworn,39. These are
colourful, poetic variations on the basic theme of human psychai and their
visible eidola. The idea is older than Homer's poem, old enough to reach back to
the myths of post-palatial Crete and the Greek mainland 40 .
Few neopalatial burials are known in Crete and practical!y no clearly identi-
fiable funerary imagery41. However, paintings of sea creatures on the sides and
even inside Minoan coffins Clarnakes) at the end of the period have led to the
suggestion that Minoans buried their dead at sea, thus accounting for the
strange archaeologicallacuna 42 . The idea of an island- sea- faring people sending
their dead on their last voyage across the sea, is certainly attractive. It conjures
up Hesiod's Isles of the Blest43 and agrees with Egyptian practice 44 . Some, but by

36 Od., XI, 489-491.

37 II. , IX, 457 (KCHUx86vlOS); cf 569.
38 NILSSON. GGR 13, p. 452-456.
39 Od., XXIV, 11-14, see A. HEUBECK's comments on the passage in A Commentmy on Homer's
Odyssey, Oxford, 1992, p. 360-361; cf BURKERT, GrRel, op. clt. (n. 25), p. 196.
40 See n. 32.
41 PINI, op. cit. (n. 5), p. 52-54; MARINATOS, MlnRel, op. clt. (n. 3), p. 229.
42 NILSSON, MMR 2 , p. 625-626; MARINATOS,' MlnRel, op. clt. (n. 3), p. 231.
43 W&D, 170-173. The concept of Elysium is discussed in a forthcoming study on Minoan
religion. The topie has been densely argued by Chf. SOURVINOU-INWOOD in her book 'Reading'
Greek Deatb. To tbe End of tbe Classlcal Perlod, Oxford, 1995, p. 32-56. Her conclusions regarding the
non-Minoan origin of Elysium basically agree with mine.
44 See n. 42.
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 27

no means the majority of, Minoan cemeteries were placed near the sea, in
eastern Crete for example and in the north at Mallia.
Furthermore, models of boats have been found in Minoan tombs, perhaps
for this very purpose 45 . One also thinks of the offering of a boat to the deceased
on one of the long sides of the Hagia Triada sarcophagus 46 , Sorne Minoan
larnakes were made in the shape of boats, but they would sink instantly if
launched on the sea. Others look like bathtubs or boxes, that is practical contai-
ners and quite unsuitable for crossing the sea to another world 47 . Equally remote
is the suggestion that the Greek myth of Danae and Perseus, who were set adrift
in a box by her father Acrisius, preserved a distant memory of Minoan custom of
burial at sea 48 ,
One votive model of a boat from a funerary context, and now in the
Mitsotakis Collection at Chania, appears to be canying a large honeycomb,
According to one interpretation, the honey was intended as food for the dead
on his last voyage 49, But if it is a honeycomb 50, a more obvious connection
seems to be with the bee as symbol of regeneration 51 , Boats are appropiate gifts
to the dead of a seafaring people and keen fishermen,
Chance preserved an important funerary document in the painting on the
four sides of the Hagia Triada sarcophagus 52 (Fig, 4). It has been plausibly sug-
gested that the decoration on the two long sides tells one continuous story of a
festival for the dead that extended over more than one day, The style of the
pictorial programme is still that of the neopalatial fresco. But the identity of the
dead person, who received the gifts and who was honoured by the elaborate
ceremonial, has been subject to debate, He may have been a mere mortal of
noble or royal blood, or even a heroized dead on his way to another world 53 .
One could wish for new Minoan finds to corroborate such a view which is
mainly based on Egyptian belief, Two pairs of female figures are seen driving
chariots from right to left across the small end panels of the coffin, One chariot

45 D, GRAY, Seewesen, G6ttingen, 1974 (Arcbaeologia Homerica), p, 14-19, For a critical review of
the evidence see R. LAFFINEUR, La mer et l'Au-delà dans l'Égée prébistorique, in Agaeum, 7 (991),
p. 233-235,
46 Sp, MARINATOS - M. HIRMER, Kreta, Tbera und das Mykeniscbe Hel/as, Munich, 19763 ,
Pl. XXXII, top.
47 Suggested by B, RUTKOWSKI, Kykladen und Kreta: Bemerkungen über die bronzezeil/icbe
Religion, in AAA, 9 (976), p. 237,
48 Criticised by LAFFINEUR, ait, cil. (n, 45), p, 234.
49 C. DAVARAS, in AB (1984), p. 76-92; fig. 1 on p. 56,
50 Doubted by LAFFINEUR, art, cit, (n. 45), p, 235.
51 DIETRICH, Oligins, op. cit. (n. 35), p, 119-122,
52 See above n, 3. According to SOURVINOU-INWOOD's eccentric view, the frescoes do not show
funerary scenes but divine cult in which the figure receiving the offerings represents a priest acting
on behalf of a god, ('Reading' Greek Deatb, op, cil, [n, 43], p, 42).
53 NILSSON, MMR 2 , p. 432-433.
 28 B.C. DIETRICH

is drawn by two winged griffins, and the other is apparently harnessed to two
goats. Both scenes should most probably be integrated as part of the whole
composition and, judging by the syntax of Minoan wall painting, the figures
represent goddesses 54 . If true, the ritual, which is depicted on the larnax, would
convey a more general significance of the symbolic celebration of death and
regeneration.
Since the early days of Minoan studies there has been much confident hope
of discovering convincing evidence for a fully developed eschatology in Minoan
belief. The primary expectation has been that of an Egyptian-type conception of
a paradise for the dead. The Ialu or Earu Fields on an island across the sea,
where the blessed souls of the dead continued to exist after death 55 . A memory
survived, according to this line of thought, in Homer's Elysian Plain to which
Menelaus was destined to be transported after his death, escaping the universal
human fate of descending to Hades. The poet also briefly mentions in passing
that Rhadamanthys lived there, as if his audience would be expected to know 56 .
The passage contains the only mention of Elysium in both epics. The presence
of Rhadamanthys implies a Cretan belief in the existence of a moral judgment of
the dead. Indeed, his brother Minos is described in the Odyssey as judging the
shades in Hades 57 .
There is an important distinction here, though, because in performing that
function in Homer's Hades the king did no more than continue his characteristic
activity in this life. In the same way the three great sinners of Greek mythology,
Tantalus, Sisyphus and Tityus, go on with their regime of penance even in
Hades 58 . More advanced moral notions came later. The idea of judgment of dead
souls on their conduct in this life was probably not formulated in Greece before
the 6th century B.C. under influence of Pythagorean and Orphic thought. Plato
first described Rhadamanthys' office as judge of the dead 59 . Homer's Elysium
(ad. 4, 563-564) is nat mentioned again in Greek literature before the Al;go-
nautica by Apollonius of Rhodes 60 . It is unique, like the scenes on the Hagia
Triada sarcaphagus, and it furthermore clashes with the picture of murky Rades
which was the more familiar fate of mortals in the western Aegean 61 .

54 Whether the goats are pulling two chthonic goddesses is another question, MARINATOS,
MiI1Re/, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 35-36. See also POTSCHER, Aspekte, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 181-182.
55 E.g. NILSSON, MMR', p. 626-627; GGR 13, p. 693; VERMEULE, Aspects, op. cft. (n. 1), p. 72-73, with
detailed references.
56
ad., IV, 561-564.
57 ad., XI, 568.
58 NILSSON, GGR 13 , p. 454.
59 Ap%gy, 41a; Gorgias, 523e.
60 AR, IV, 811.

61 See n. 43.
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 29

The 'Ring of Nestor'

Sir Arthur Evans digresses to describe the discovery of a remarkable ring in a

tholos tomb at Pylos (Kakovatos) . The solid gold signet was found by a peasant
in 1907 before the first German excavations at the site. Evans went out of his
way to acquire the object after seeing an impression of the design 62 . He called it
the 'Ring of Nestor' after the king of Messenian Pylos, where the ring had been
discovered (Fig. 5). Going by the associated painted pottery in the same tomb,
Evans dated the ring to the first phase of the Late Minoan period, that is about
the second half of the 16th century B.e. 63. Il is a little earlier therefore than the
Hagia Triada sarcophagus and its decoration very much in the style of the
Knossian Miniature Frescoes 64 . There are 17 figures, human and animal, in the
ring's design without counting the two lepidoptera in the top-Ieft zone. They
greatly outnumber those of any other known ring of the Minoan and Mycenaean
repertoire. In dress, actions and accoutrements the figures are strictly Minoan,
although there is an impression of separate elements or groups having been
placed side by side without perhaps fully coming together in one organic com-
position. The field of design on the bezel is dramatically divided into four
separate zones by the trunk of a gigantic tree which, together with its horizontal
branches, extends to the north, south, east and west edges of the oval ring. Like
Yggdrasil, the Scandinavian 'Tree of the World', the top of the trunk here
touches the sky, while its massive roots reach deep down below the surface to
the netherworld 65.
The first scene on the top left shows a seated pair of female figures next to a
standing young male and woman with raised arms. Above the larger, seated
female, whom Evans identifies as the Minoan Great Goddess, two butterflies are
hovering with two chrysalises still higher up in the same field. A large couchant
lion, symbol of royal and divine power, has his head turned to the right and al!
but fills the other upper zone. He is lying on a platform, which Nilsson identifies
as a sacrificial table like that on the Hagia Triada sarcophagus. On the ring,
however, the table is more elaborate: it has two top plates and what look like
three portable altars with incurving sides for legs. Also two figures are shown
kneeling before the massive platform 66 .
The left lower field suggests the typical progress of a procession with the
leading figure drawing the three others to the right towards the tree. On the
other side are three bird-headed females of which one is turned to the left as if

62 PM, III, 145-157, Fig. 95: 104; Pl. XXA.

63 PM, III, 146.
64 PM, III, 146: 155: 157, see also NILSSON, MMR 2 , p. 43-45, specially p. 45.
65 PM, III, 147-148: NILSSON, MMR 2 : p. 44.
66 MMR 2 , p. 47-48. Nilsson believes the artist revealed his forgery by rnisunderstanding the
correct use for the platforrn as a slaughtering table.
 30 B.C. DIETRICH

beckoning to the processional group, while the other two with characteristic
gestures of adoration stand before a winged griffin seated on a table. The
woman behind the griffin effectively frames the scene. She stands at the right
facing inward to the left. She is taller than the adorants and more formally dres-
sed like a priestess or possibly goddess. Hel' head is disproportionally small in
the manner of late neopalatial glyptic 67 , so that it is impossible to see whether
her features are human or those of a bird like the other three figures 68 . Hel'
gesture of one arm down along her side and the other raised from the elbow
symmetrically repeats that of the first bird-headed female figure.

Fig. 5 : The 'Ring of Nestor' (PM, III, p. 153, fig. 104)

Evans explains the lower scene as 'the initiatory examination of those ente-
ring the Halls of the Just in the Griffin's Court,69. His reading is based on analogy
with Egyptian beliefs, and he compares the limbs of the massive tree on the
'Ring of Nestor' with the 'four rivers of Paradise or the triple-branched water
course of the Fields of Ialu in the Egyptian 'Islands of the Blest,70. The composite

67 A. TAMVAKI, 77Je Human Figure in the Aegean Glyptic of the Late Bronze Age: Some Remarks,
in CMS (1989), p. 263, 264.
68 But see PM, III, Pi. XXA, which opts for the former.
69 PM, III, 154.
70 Pk!, III, 147,
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 31

picture reads as one coherent story, according to him, in the fashion of Minoan
wall-painting. It is the pictorial representation of the Minoan Afterworld 71 .
Because of its crowded scenes and unusual features, like the large central
tree, doubts have been cast on the ring's authenticity ever since Evans published
it 72 . Unjustly, however, as it turns out. A curious dog-like creature with short
legs, long neck and tail, the forerunner of Cerberus according to Evans 73, ap-
pears to be running down along the roots of the tree. An exact replica of the
animal has since been found on a ring which came to light in Mycenae in 1954
and therefore could not have been known to the presumptive forger 74 .
Nevertheless, like the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, the Ring of Nestor remains a
unique document which on its own can hardly sustain a theory concerning
Minoan afterlife.
In one important respect, however, Evans' suggestions have been vindi-
cated. He rightly explained as symbols of regeneration the pair of butterflies and
chrysalises above the 'goddess' head in the ring's upper zone. His detailed
digression on the topic and discussion of comparative material from the Third
Shaftgrave of Circle A at Mycenae is quite convincing 75 . Recognizably similar
designs of winged insects were engraved on the golden scales from the grave
which also contained models of bees in gold leaf together with objects in the
shape of chrysalises or pupae 76 . The wonderful miniature golden balance with
two scales, which have butterflies engraved on them, cali to mind Zeus' golden
scales with which he weighed the keres, or fates of death, of Achilles and
Hector 77 . Evans thought of the scales as an instrument for weighing the souls of
the dead, a kind of '!''lJxoO''tacrta, again on analogy with Egyptian religion 78.
The subject has been discussed elsewhere with the conclusion that, on the
evidence, a belief in the existence of a soul and its posthumous judgment
seemed unlikely in Minoan thought 79 . The sign of the butterfly, bee and related
symbols suggests the more basic message of renewal from death and decay. The
idea governed ancient religious belief at least since Early Minoan and can ultima-

71 Ibid.
72 E.g. NILSSON, MMR 2 , p. 43-50.
73 PM, III, 154.
74 CMS l, p. 167. See J.A. SAKELLARAKIS, über die Echtheit des sogenannten Nest0l11nges, in Acts of
3rd Cretological Congress (1973), p. 303-318; cf LAFFINEUR, art. cif. (n. 45), p. 234.
75 PM, III, 149-152.
76 PM, III, 150-151, Fig. 100a, b; Fig. 101, 1-4; Fig. 102.
77 HOM., Il., XXII, 209-213, with LEAF's commentary on this passage and Il., VIII, 69, 70.
78 PM, III, 151.
79 B.e. DIETRICH, The judgmellt of Zeus, in RhM, 107 (1964), p. 121-122; Fate, op. cif. (n.6),
p. 241-242.
 32 B.C. DIETRICH

tely be traced back to neolithic Anatolian Çatal Hüyük80 . The panel on the Ring
of Nestor therefore, at its most basic level, reveals the expectation of new life.
The message is of course appropiate for a gift to the dead prince of Messenian
Pylos. More one cannot read from the design without forcing the evidence; but
it is to be hoped that new information will cast more light on the episodes of the
whole story. Certainly the elaborate composition on the ring portrays one or
more scenes from Minoan myth and sophisticated religion.

Scenes from Minoan and Mycenaean larnakes

The sarcophagus at Hagia Triada bridges the divide between neopalatial

tradition of wall painting and post-palatial forms that in turn linked up with the
Mycenaean world. The figures on the coffin are dressed more in the fashion of
the mainland than in the usual Minoan garb of open bodice and skirt 81 . The
festival of the dead shown on its sides, as well as other features, have a distinctly
Mycenaean 'flavour'82, although one would in any case expect common
religious forms in the last phases of the Bronze Age. Chronologically the lime-
stone sarcophagus introduces a period of intense interest in funerary art over
more than two-hundred years. Many painted stone and clay coffins have turned
up in Crete between about 1400, that is the date of the Hagia Triada sarco-
phagus itself, and 1200 B.e. (LM IlIA - Cj most examples date from IlIB)83.

In complete contrast with neopalatial frescoes, the decoration of the late

larnakes consists in abstract designs which coyer the body and lid of the coffins
in deceptively simple style. Figures are now far less in evidence, if not altogether
absent, and the overall effect recalls the designs and mixed perspectives of vase
painting 84 . Contemporary coffins from Tanagra on the mainland mostly show
mourning (female) figures in keeping with the purpose of the decoration. The
Minoan connection emerges from the continued use of common symbols like
horns of consecration, birds etc. 85 . The link with funerary ritual for an indivi dual
deceased is obvious in the case of the mainland examples but far less so from

80 DIETRICH, Origins, op. cit. (n. 35), p. 104, 119-122; cf R. LAFFINEUR, in L1conographie minoenne
(Acts of tbe Round Table at Atbens, 21-22 April 1983), Paris, 1985, p. 250-257.
81 VERMEULE, art. cÎt. (n. 10), p. 135.
82 See previous note and NILSSON, MMR 2 , p. 441, 442.
83 VERMEULE, ibid.; MARINATOS, MinRel, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 229-241, with illustrations.
84 Cf N. PLATON, La civilisation Égéenne, Paris, 1981, II, p. 330, Figs. 29 and 30. On the subject of
Jate larnakes see, apart from PINI, op. CÎt. (n. 5), B. RUTKOWSKI, Lamaksi Egejski, Warsaw-Krakow,
1966 (Bibliotbeca Antiqua, 7); C. MAVRIYANNAKI, Recbercbes sur les lamakes minoennes de la Crète
occidentale, Rome, 1972 (Incunabula Graeca).
85 No double axe, however; VERMEULE, ait. cit. (n. 10), p. 126. The Tanagra sarcophagi cannot be
compared with Minoan Jarnakes, according to SOURVINOU-INWOOD, 'Reading' Greek Death, op. cit.
(n. 43), p. 40-41, des pite their comparable form and age.
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 33

the Cretan abstract designs. There is no evidence, however, that the change in
the style of decoration accompanied a fundamental shift in the conception of
death and afterlife.

Fig. 6a : Sarcophagus with octopus and papyrus, Pachyammos

Fig. 6b : Sarcophagus with !id, waterbirds and fish
(MARINATOS-HIRMER, op. CÎt. [no 46], fig. 130)
 34 RC. DIETRICH

The painters of the coffins borrowed from the motifs on vases including
papyrus plants, terrestrial animaIs, bull, horse, goats, creatures of the sea,
octopus, fish, nautilus etc. Theil' sizes vary and can be quite disproportionate to
one another as well as to real life on the same coffin. Figures may be zoned off
separately, as on a larnax from Pachyammos (Fig. 6)86, but generally they are
carelessly placed in juxtaposed profusion. A coffin from Anogeia in central Crete
has a large central papyrus plant which is surrounded at all levels by birds, fish
and other sea creatures. More birds and fish cover the lid87 . Theme, subject and
form closely match those of contemporary small funerary vases (alabastra) from
tombs at Kalyvia near Phaistos (Fig. 7), and on a pyxis (jewel box) that was
found in a chamber tomb at Pachyammos 88 . The crowded pictures suggest the
overwhelming fertility of generous nature in the air, on land and in the sea 89 .
The symbolism conveyed by the paintings is still basic and is repeated on
other larnakes. Only occasionally does the evidence afford a glimpse below the
surface for a more detailed reading of myth or ritual. The pyxis from Pachyam-
mos, for example, is painted with a large male figure in priestly dress but in the
grim style of the time with long neck and one large central eye. He holds a
seven-stringed phorminx or lyre, and he appears to be charming birds with his
music making them rise from below and dive down from the sk y 90 . The story
nevertheless does not really depart significantly from the basic context of
renewal from death, as is clearly signalled by the two pairs of sacred horns with
double axes in the middle.
Horns and axes, together with other related symbols, continue to be favou-
rite themes of funerary art. Chariots also occur not infrequently since the Hagia
Triada sarcophagus. They transcend their purely funerary function as bier or part
of the procession and could have signalled divine arrivaI or departure. More
commonly a chariot recalls the hunt in this world. It may be shown empty, its
horses unyoked and suspended in space as part of a larger scene 91 . Hunting
seems to have been the message in the main: either a particular hunt or more
commonly, one suspects, the general theme as representing man's noblest and
most pleasing pursuit in this world.
A lively scene of the genre can be seen on the sides of a late larnax from
Armenoi in western Crete 92 . The hunt is viewed from above. Two horned cattle

86 Large octopus with stylised papyrus, Fig. 6a.

87 Fig.6b.
88 MARINATOS-HIRMER, Kl'eta, op. cif, (n. 46), Pl. 126-128.
89 Cf LAFFINEUR, al1. cit. (n. 45), p. 237: MARINATOS, MinReI, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 234.
90 MARINATOS-HIRMER, Kl'eta, op. cit. (n. 46), Pl. 128 bottom. The authors describe the figure as
an early Apollo Kitharodos, p. 150. A scene with Orpheus springs to mind.
91 E.g. on a larnax from Kavrochori, MARINATOS, MinRel, op. cif. (n, 6), Fig, 238.
92 AM, 4 (1971), p. 217, fig. 4.(MARIN. Fig. 240)
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 35

are painted with a spear jutting out of their back at an angle. A man next ta one
of them strikes his victim with a sword. A very similar scene covers one of the
narrow ends of a coffin from Maroulas 93 . The victims are horned cattle and
goats. Hatched loops on bath larnakes can be read as entrances ta caves as seen
from a bird's eye view. A good example survives on a vase from Phaistos in the
Kamares-style, on which a cave and goat have been moulded in relief94. Despite
spear and sword, the ambience of the hunt is surprisingly peaceful, since on the
Armenoi coffin the animaIs are protecting young beneath them that appear ta be
suckling. The symbolism of renewal through life-giving nature again emerges
from the scene and is reinforced, one imagines, by the male figure, perhaps a
priest, who is standing in the mouth of a cave wielding what appears ta be a
double axe in his raised hand 95. The ultimate message of this generic picture is
still the same, including sacrifice/slaughter, cave and double axe.
The most remarkable example of the series cornes from a cemetery in
Hierapetra in south-eastern Crete. Four clearly outlined panels contain more
human figures than other larnakes, as well as the largest among them 96. Bottom
left depicts three men standing in a curious boat-shaped chariot which is drawn
by a horse from left ta right. It stands above a large octopus. The accu pants of
the wagon carry a cup and a disk fixed ta a staff. The impression of a ritual
procession is reinforced by three more male figures above the chariot group with
raised arms and moving in the same direction. One of them is also carrying a
drinking vessel. On the right bottom panel the largest male figure holds a similar
disk and cup in his raised hand. He is shawn frontally beside a horse ta which
he is attached by a string. A young foal stands beneath the horse suckling, like
the animaIs on the Armenoi larnax. The lid of the coffin on bath sides has more
animaIs in a similar arrangement, except that other smaller ones are shawn
above their backs as weIl. A remarkable feature of the composition consists in
the curious excrescence between the horns of one large animal standing before
a human figure 97. The other side is almost equally filled with large and smaller
human figures together with animaIs and plants. One small male figure between
the two bottom panels on the first side somehow links the various panels of the
extraordinary larnax. Its one side suggests the paraphernalia and ritual of a
funerary procession, the other less certainly a scene from nature, a hunt perhaps,
although no one can tell for sure. The single eye, which is almost as big as the

93 AM, 6 (973), p. 319, fig. 3.

94 MM, from the first palace of Phaistos.
95 For a different view, with full discussion, see POTSCHER, Aspekte, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 20, 32, fig. 3.
96 MARINATOS-HIRMER, Kreta, op. cit. (n. 46), Pl. 132.
97 Cf the animal on the left on a larnax from Gournia, MARINATOS-HlRMER, Kreta, op. cit.
(n. 46), Pl. 131.
 36 B.C. DIETRICH

head of individual men Cthere are no females), graphically expresses light and
life; but this also remains an inspired guess like so many others on the subject98 .

Fig. 7 : Alabastra from Kalyvia (MARINATOS-HIRMER, op. cit. [no 46J, fig. 127)

98 E.g. hunt: PLATON, op. cit. (n.64), p.330; adoration of a divine bull, p.362; komos:
MARINATOS-HIRMER, Kreta, op. cif. (n. 46), p. 152; the dead as Master of Animais: MARINATOS,
Mil1Rel, op. cif. (n. 6), p. 237, etc.
 DEATH AND AFTERLIFE IN MINOAN RELIGION 37

The contemporary larnakes from a Boeotian cemetery at Tanagra, look like

crude local productions beside the island models. Few have lids or handles 99 :
they are heavy clay boxes with faded, thin and patterned-type decorations.
These mostly consist of women mourning the one dead of that particular burial.
For ail that, the designs retain important elements of the same vocabulary of
funerary symbols: plant and horns of consecration whose meaning doubtless
repeated the same message of renewal 1OO . The mainland community, that was
served by the cemetery, was evidently poor and could not match the quality of
artists and resources of Crete. The Tanagra coffins, however, show the same mix
of Minoan/Mycenaean burial customs as the Mycenaean shaft graves in the
rectangular enclosure at Phourni near Arkhanes 101. The chamber tombs at
Tanagra had long entrance passages (dromoi) Up to three larnakes were depo-
sited inside one tomb 102 , sorne containing bones, while in other cases the bones
were found directly on the ground. Perhaps they belonged to earlier burials and
had been cast aside; but larnakes were not part of the usual Mycenaean burial
practice in shaft or chamber tomb, and their use in these settings was borrowed
from Minoan form.
One coffin of the Tanagra group, and now in the museum at Kassel in
Germany103, offers something excitingly new that seems to confirm both Minoan
and Mycenaean pragmatic perceptions of human fate after death. On one of the
small sides, between two strips of chequerboard pattern and below circular
beam-ends denoting an enclosed structure, a female figure is painted in fading
outline. Her feet are off the ground, and with arms upraised she seems to be
fioating upwards on two wings sprouting out of her sides. Her plumed fiat cap
vaguely recalls that worn by the sitopotinija (?) of the Cult Centre at
Mycenae 104. There is a certain similarity in her attitude of raised arms and wings
to a later figure on a Protogeometric funerary pithos from the Fortetsa cemetery
near Knossos 105. At first glance the latter could be mistaken for a survival of the
Minoan iconographic type; but her attachments to the waist are in fact snakes
which, not unusually for the period, she probably owed to oriental models. She

99 VERMEULE, art. cit. (n. 10), p. 125.

100 VERMEULE, ait. cit. (n. 10), Pl. XXV-XXVIII. The author suggests (p. 145) that the horns, which
appear on two coffins (N° 5 & 8), are mere architectural patterns devoid of religious content. Given
the close chronological and cultural links, this seems unlikely, however.
101 Above fi. Il.
102 VERMEULE, ait. cit. (n. 10), p. 125.
103 R. LULLIES, Griechische Pfastik, Vasen und Kfeinkunst, Kassel, 1964, n° 37: VERMEULE, art. cil.
(n. 10), p. 126-129: 146: Pl. XXVI a, b.
104 P. REHAK, Tradilion and Innovation in the Fresko in Room 31 in the 'Cuft Center' at Myeenae,
in Aegaeum, 8 (1992), p. 56 & Fig. XIIa.
105 Fortetsa pls. 24 & 144 n° 339: COLDSTREAM, Geometrie Greece, p. 69, Fig. 21 a, b: VERMEULE,
art. eit. (n. 10), Fig. 2(e).
 38 B.C. DIETRICH

may be a goddess 106, but not so the winged, waif-like form on the Tanagra
larnax. The latter looks more like a somewhat clumsy attempt at pictorial
representation of the deceased's eidolon on its way to Hades. If that is right, the
singular coffin reflects the negative contemporary view of afterlife which Homer
adopted in his epic 107 .
B.e. DIETRICH
ABERYSTWYTH
UK

106 COLDSTREAM, op cit. (n. 105), p.70, thinks of the divine protector of the deceased in the
underworld.
107 This plausible Interpretation was first proposed by VERMEULE, art. cil. (n. 10), p. 146-147.